Irene Tracey is Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Warden of Merton College, her alma mater, at the University of Oxford. Irene directed for ten years what is now one of the world's premier neuroimaging centres; she held the Nuffield Chair in Anaesthetics and was Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Using neuroimaging, Irene's multidisciplinary research team has made fundamental discoveries into how we construct the experience of pain, its relief and how analgesics and anaesthetics work. She sits on various international panels and has been awarded many national and international prizes for her work on pain and anaesthesia.